Bee Joyful

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"But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades."

Revelation 1:17b-18

I stayed at a VRBO recently that was very in love with motivation signs.

"Good morning, beautiful!"

"Dream big!"

"Make today a great one!"

And the big one in the kitchen: "Choose happiness!"

Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I think that's kind of ridiculous. A friend received some awful news while I was at this VRBO. Was it wrong for her to "choose grief?" It was hard for me to say goodbye to my mom after she left from our girls weekend and then go back to my remote job, all alone by myself in my home office. Was it wrong of me to "choose loneliness?"

I think I've mentioned before that Squirrel loves to hang out on the deck (most likely multiple times. What can I saw? He reallllly loves it). It's his favorite place to relax...except when there are bees. We have hoards of carpenter bees that love to drill into the deck, leaving the sides looking like Swiss cheese. I've tried pest control, re-staining the sides, bee traps...they are persistent little critters. If only the softwares engineers I manage at work were so dogged.

As long as the carpenter bees are around, Squirrel can't relax. He chases them around the deck and swats them out of mid-air. I'm not a fan of them either; it is hard to let your guard down while they are dive-bombing you while reading.

While the bees are annoying, for the most part they are a harmless variety. For humans and dogs, at least. My deck would beg to differ.

Life is full of bees. How's that for a motivation saying? I kind of like it...

Some of these bees are merely annoying, some are dangerous and painful. It's simply not realistic to expect to always bee happy (see what I did there?). And I think it's okay to feel a range of emotions, and not just happiness as the bees fly around your head.

What I do believe in, however; is choosing joy. I think joy and happiness are vastly different. Where happiness is the feeling of everything currently going well, joy is recognizing that God loves you. God's with you. And God's going to put all of this nonsense we see right one day.

Sorry, Squirrel - I don't think God is going to get rid of bees. I do think they are rather important. And I don't think God is going to rid our earthly lives of all hardships. So feel sadness. Loneliness. Grief. Whatever the bee in your season calls for. But while you feel those things, Bee Joyful, knowing you are not alone.